David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Saturday December 18, 2004
The Guardian

Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, has been blocked from sending a Christmas gift of weapons and ammunition on behalf of the British taxpayer to re-equip the Iraqi army and police.

Two left-wing Labour MPs have used a parliamentary procedure to object to the defence secretary including grenade launchers, guns and ammunition in a peacekeeping package to restore law and order in the war-torn republic.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday that delivery of the equipment - part of a Â£17.5m package - will have to be halted until the MPs' objections are examined. The move means at the minimum that no equipment is likely to reach Iraq until after the elections.

The deal was part of an MoD programme to give equipment, often surplus to requirements, to friendly states. By standards of aid to Iraq it is comparatively small beer, since Britain, mainly through the Department of International Development, is committed to spending Â£544m by the end of 2006 in aid to reconstruct Iraq.

The deal came to light after a minute placed in the Commons library revealed details of the gift, which includes 5,666 pistols, 438 grenade launchers, 3,250 radios and 850,000 rounds of live ammunition.

The MoD says the main reason for donating the weapons is to restore stability. "Our objective is to hasten the capability and capacity of the Iraqi police, national guard and department of border enforcement. This will help reduce the burden on our own forces, enhance wider conflict resolution and facilitate our ultimate withdrawal."

Two Labour rebels over the war, Glenda Jackson, MP for Hampstead and Highgate, and Llew Smith, MP for Blaenau Gwent, disagree. In a motion tabled in the Commons, they say: "That ... while welcoming the gifting of equipment for training purposes to the Iraqi interim government ... deplores the inclusion of this gift of live ammunition, grenade launchers and pistols; and calls upon the government to withdraw such military hardware, which will do nothing to reduce violence and intimidation in a country awash with such weapons."

Mr Smith said yesterday: "While we all want the conflict to end in Iraq as a soon as possible, pouring guns into a country already stacked with weapons is not the way to resolve the conflict. To sell the idea that by making this Christmas gift of arms to the unelected Iraqi regime will speed up the withdrawal of the occupying forces is disingenuous. The British troops should be withdrawn because they were part of an illegal invasion force, as the UN secretary-general has confirmed."

The deal came to light after a minute placed in the Commons library revealed details of the gift, which includes 5,666 pistols, 438 grenade launchers, 3,250 radios and 850,000 rounds of live ammunition.

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Are all these pistols old Brownings I wonder ?

Or does this government have thousands of pistols just lying about for cheap aid packages ?

If it is indeed 9mm from MoD "surplus" stocks, I would like TCH/Blair/?/ to explain personally to me where these stocks were on the night of 20 Mar 03 when I invaded Iraq with zero rounds for my issue weapon....

I'd also quite like to hear more about these radios, and why such things can be bought for gifts for the Iraqis but apparently not for issue to HM's soldiers on combat operations - again it would have been nice to have had some comms whilst invading an enemy land in the middle of the pitch-black night (er, NVG was also on my list of 17 items "unavailable, but would have been nice to have in a war"...).

The deal came to light after a minute placed in the Commons library revealed details of the gift, which includes 5,666 pistols, 438 grenade launchers, 3,250 radios and 850,000 rounds of live ammunition.

......

Click to expand...

Are all these pistols old Brownings I wonder ?

Or does this government have thousands of pistols just lying about for cheap aid packages ?

Click to expand...

Come on Cuts! At a guess these are the ones they stole off the UK shooting community six years ago!

.... And, FMOB, I'm STILL owed Â£90 by Essex police for the stuff they wouldn't compensate me for and haven't yet returned, nor have they returned the original receipts, as required by the hand-in scheme!
No wonder the Firearms Act never worked properly, 'cos the police aren't capable of maintaining simple procedures

Sorry, I went way off thread... But it seemed like a good idea at the time, officer...

Come on Cuts! At a guess these are the ones they stole off the UK shooting community six years ago!

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As you know 'OldAdam' they're now manhole covers.

OldAdam said:

.... And, FMOB, I'm STILL owed Â£90 by Essex police for the stuff they wouldn't compensate me for and haven't yet returned, nor have they returned the original receipts, as required by the hand-in scheme!

I didn't see the radios bit before. I presume UK gov has had these for some time; why then were we running an ops room on a 320 and a mobile phone on the [insecure and temperamental] Kuwaiti network, having comms crises all the time with 320s constantly having to go into workshops, having to plead with REME to get them back ASAP, begging and borrowing from other units, and all the rest of the shennanigans? Particularly when we had to borrow radios from the Czechs to get inter-convoy comms. And especially when private security firms had little gizmos that gave them intra-theatre comms.
Probably for the same reason that we were running around in SWB 90s for six months and decent vehicles hit 2 days before we left theatre. How many O & D's does it take to change a lightbulb? Don't know, they'll be having the weekend off in Kuwait city...

Sorry, I don't mean to be a pain but, after six?-ish years, I got fed up with trying and fed up with waiting... I've now written it off and view it as an object lesson in dealing with officialdom...
This is not a personal criticism of you. I accept that there are more important things to be done but I try to play by the rules that are laid down, as pointless as they are. It seems that some rules/laws are formulated to be just that, rules; whether they are capable of enforcment and good and equitable administration or not.

... Manhole covers? Yes, all the old, worn out and odd types and calibres, but what about the Glocks, Sigs and others of current service patterns? I seem to vaguely recall part of the Home Office blurb stating that such items in good repair would be retained and put to use...